(A Narrative Poem)
The first Good Friday dawned, white-blown and blue,
with yellow sunglow plundering April greens.
Earth mocked the death that Christ decreed Himself.
The Man Who stood before the judgment seat
Of Pilate viewed, sad-eyed, the sin-strung path
Of centuries. His purple robe jeered as
The Roman washed his hands of innocence
And yielded justice to the mob appeal.
His Sacred Head all moist with tears of blood
That thorns had forced to breathe, Christ left the court
In ignominy, kinglier than all
The kings of time.
Wood that His Father’s mind
Had wrought was crossed to burden Him. His steps
Were laggard underneath the gibbet’s weight.
His spirit burned with calumnies that men
Had heaped upon Him until, drunk with grief
And weakness, He fell prone. Rude soldiers flung
Hot curses at His helplessness. Their words
And ruffian blows cut air like anviled sparks.
Christ moved along. A crowd had gathered on
The rough-hewn highway, and He looked to find
His Mother’s tender eyes consoling Him.
Her glance caressed His wounds as soothingly
As when she kissed away His childish woes,
Though now her heart was crucified with His.
A constant weariness tagged the glum cortege
And, fearful that their victim might expire
Before He reached the sacrificial bier,
The executioners constrained Cyrene
To bear the hulk behind Him Whom their guilt
Judged infamous.
The sun hammered nails of heat
Into Christ’s flesh, and soon His too-taxed veins
Ran red, confusing eyes and feet. Stumbling,
He bore His face into a linen towel
Veronica spread, trembling to His gift
As one who dreamed of death and waked to love.
The scalding pavements seared and scorched. Women
with children at their sides cried at His anguish,
And all eternity shone on them as
He said: “Weep not for Me, but for your
Little ones.” His words but made them weep
The more.
His sinews were mangled and His nerves
Distorted of control. Prostrated twice
And then a third time on the gnawing road,
His wavering muscles fed the murderers’ lust
Till Golgotha loomed high and ghastly in
The noon-time glare.
The soldiers fought among
Themselves for the blood-drenched garments that they dragged
Like plaster from His agonizing sides.
The cross was flattened to the earth that gave
It life. The swooning Christ surrendered hands
And feet to spikes that slashed His skin, spattering
Their blood.
Staggering, they prod the plank into
The summit’s heart. A spasm shook the mount.
Graves vomited their dead. Mad lightning hissed.
A furious thunder bellowed louder than
The jungle’s beasts, and houses thrust apart
Their walls, and buildings crumbled as
If dynamite had set them all ablaze.
The first Good Friday dawned, white-blown and blue,
With yellow sunglow plundering April greens.
Earth mocked the death that Christ decreed Himself.
Three days but passed till death in turn mocked earth.
Evelyn Coffey
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